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Robert Downey Jr. arrived a few minutes late Thursday morning for an “intimate Canadian roundtable” concerning The Judge, TIFF’s opening gala movie.

The car taking him to the Shangri-La Hotel on University Ave. had gotten stuck in Toronto’s permanent gridlock.

“We’re running late, and this has to do with the infrastructure of your city,” Downey said, managing to crack a smile.

“I’m going to set up a zip-line system.”

He was caught unawares, which just goes to show you that even the actor who plays Sherlock Holmes in the movies can’t figure this city out.

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It occurs to me that he’s not alone in his befuddlement. The many thousands of celebrities and other out-of-towners returning to Toronto for the 11 days of TIFF may have trouble recognizing a town that they thought they knew.

Construction around town continually slows traffic to a crawl, which is frustrating for much of the year. (Randy Risling / Toronto Star File Photo)

Many Torontonians feel the same way, and it’s not just the roads that have us wondering. For the benefit of TIFF visitors, I’m going to attempt to offer a few explanations:

Roads to nowhere: “Toronto has two seasons — winter and roadwork,” a favourite local expression goes.

That’s actually not true anymore. They never stop digging up and closing down roads in this town. Construction is 24/7, no matter what the season.

Thrifty Canadians that we are, we saved up 20 years’ worth of neglected street repairs and decided to do them all this summer.

Roads have also been blocked and/or closed by our endless condo building boom, a movie shoot for a new Adam Sandler masterpiece and renovations to Union Station that may be completed sometime this century.

The Union Station overhaul, by the way, includes a fancy direct train to Pearson Airport that will be priced so that only bankers can afford to use it. But the bankers will likely remain in their limos on the jammed roads, alongside the rest of us in our jalopies.

We’re also building for the 2015 Pan Am Games, a sporting event that cities get when they’re not cool enough to host the Olympics. If you really want to see gridlock, come back next summer when 150 kilometres of lanes on our major highways are closed to regular traffic and turned into express routes for athletes, coaches and the media.

And because all this road closing feels so good, the city decided to allow TIFF to shut down King St. for several blocks west of University Ave. for the first four days of the fest, for a pedestrian promenade called Festival Street. No cars or streetcars will be allowed in, of course.

Do us a favour, dear TIFF visitor. If you spot any street with moving traffic during your visit to Toronto, please report this to City Hall immediately. This is an oversight. Work crews and jackhammers will be dispatched immediately.

is still mayor: This is not a misprint.Rob Ford isofficiallystill mayor of Toronto, although it’s easy to see why you’d be confused.

The TIFF program book contains greetings to the festival from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne … and Toronto Deputy Mayor . Rob Ford is persona non grata in the book, which might have something to do with the fact that he votes against giving arts grants to TIFF.

As you’ve no doubt seen on The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live and other news programs, Ford has a fondness for crack pipes, vodka bottles and impromptu public outbursts. This might also have something to do with why Deputy Mayor Kelly is the official face of Toronto for TIFF.

But Ford has been to rehab, swears blind he’s cleaned up, and here’s the really amazing thing: he might get reelected as mayor come October.

Can you imagine any U.S. mayors getting away with what Rob Ford has gotten away with? We Canadians really do enjoy a good laugh, don’t we? Isn’t it time for one of you TIFF producers to green light a Rob Ford biopic?

TIFF stops acting Canadian: I know from speaking with many U.S. visitors that they’re puzzled why we’ve suddenly stopped acting Canadian about having TIFF premieres scooped by the rival Telluride Film Festival in Colorado.

For years, we pretended it didn’t matter when Toronto’s “world premieres” of films like the Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech and 12 Years a Slave actually had their first public showings in Telluride the weekend before TIFF.

Before social media, Telluride was relatively off the radar, a rich person’s preserve that was akin to having private screenings in one’s manor.

Then Telluride joined the social media trumpets and also started jockeying more aggressively for potential Oscar winners, beating Toronto to the golden headlines and the victory lap.

Toronto responded this year by instituting a new rule that only world or North American premieres can screen at TIFF during the media-heavy first four days of the fest.

I know, it’s not like us to push people around like this. Especially our friendly American neighbours, whom you’d think would understand the desire of wanting to be first at something.

But being Canadian, we’re sorry we had to do this. And we hope you don’t stay mad at us. Have a nice TIFF.

Peter Howell’s new Star Dispatches ebook, Movies I Can’t Live Without, is now available for just $2.99 at www.starstore.ca .

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